


Tell Me I'm Alive

by stelleappese



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Domestic, First Christmas, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, What-If, probably a hint of:
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 18:44:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4490568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stelleappese/pseuds/stelleappese
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Timothy Kirk's attempt to ruin Ray's life and get him stripped of his priesthood succeeds. Two years later, Miguel's request for parole is accepted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Me I'm Alive

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a sucker for happy endings, what can I do.
> 
> Also: I tried changing my writing style a little, for this one; I'm still trying to figure out what works for me, hope it doesn't look too weird :P

Two years have passed since the Church kicked Ray out. The accusations moved against him by Timothy Kirk have been disproved, the investigation was closed without even needing to go to court; but the Cardinal was trying to make a point, to make an example out of him, perhaps even teach him a lesson, and he succeeded.

Time is a weird thing, now; every day seems to last a lifetime, and yet when Ray stops and tries to focus, he realizes a month has passed without him noticing, then six. Season change, years pass, and what does he have to show for them? Most of the time he can’t even remember what he’s been doing during all that time.

He tries keeping himself busy as much as he can. He may not be a priest anymore, but he still wants to help. He works in an orphanage five days a week, volunteers in the soup kitchen and at the little neighborhood library as often as he can. He smiles at people, he works hard, he tries his best; and still he comes home at the end of the day, and dreads that empty apartment of his. He loathes the silence. The rectory used to be silent too, but it was a different quality of silence. The silence of several people being quiet together, praying and working, a comfortable, familiar silence. This silence is just emptiness.

The moments he hates the most is when the sun is just about to go down, and the apartment is suddenly painted orange and gold, signaling the end of the day, the coming of darkness; and when night finally falls, too early to sleep, too late to do anything else, and he sits on his couch, his eyes drawn to the sad blue lights in other people’s windows.

Every day he wakes up, he gets dressed, eats some breakfast, and tries to get out of the apartment as fast as he can, meaning to spend as much time as he can away from it. And he means to do the same today as well, but he’s just about to grab his coat when the doorbell rings, and he freezes for a moment: his doorbell doesn’t usually ring. The concierge takes care of the mail, he signs stuff and so on, then calls Ray when he needs him to come down and get something. People don’t visit him, apart from Peter Marie, but she always tells him when she’s going to drop by.

So Ray leaves his coat where it is and walks to the door, and when he opens it he almost forgets to breathe for a moment, as Miguel smiles hesitantly at him. He’s wearing a suit, the same suit he wore when he went to his first parole hearing, and he’s holding a gym bag.  
“Hello, Padre”, he says, and: “Can I come in?”  
Ray feels like he’s looking at a ghost. He doesn’t know what to do, so he says yes and moves aside to let Miguel in.

He looks thinner than Ray remembered him, sadder, even more tired than he was before. They sit at the kitchen table, Miguel with a cup of steaming hot coffee in front of him, still wearing the too-big jacket of his suit, looking around curiously.  
Did he come here straight after being released?, wonders Ray, how did he even know where to look for him?

There’s a handful of seconds of silence, then Miguel grins at Ray and tells him: “You look tired, Padre.”  
Which is true, Ray guesses. He’s tired. He’s so utterly, deeply tired. The sort of tiredness that seeps into one’s bones and aches dully and constantly.  
“Call me Ray”, is the only thing he can think to say, “I’m not a priest anymore.”  
“Bullshit”, snorts Miguel, but he doesn’t elaborate on the matter.

The guy who’d been doing his best to keep him in jail has had an accident, he says, and no, oh no, not _that_  kind of accident, an _actual_  accident, with a car and all; so Miguel’s parole has been accepted: he was released the day before. He took a bus home, packed a few things, left immediately. “It’s all in the environment, you see”, he says, “If I go back, some bad shit’s gonna happen.”  
His now-ex girlfriend and his best friend are thinking about getting married, he says, he’s too old to go back to his mother, and all he’s ever known in his life have been toxic people. So can he stay for a bit? A week or two, top. The time to find a job and a place of his own. “You won’t even know I’m here”, he promises.

Ray thinks it’s a bad idea, but he’s not going to kick him out. He’s not going to let him sleep in the street. He may be living a different life, now, but Miguel’s soul is still his responsibility, and so is he.  
“I’ll think about it”, he says, wondering if he can maybe find him something to do at the orphanage, a place to stay somewhere nearby. Miguel smiles at him and thanks him, his voice low and rough, tight, fragile.

But it’s getting late and Ray has work to do, so will Miguel be all right all alone in here? Miguel nods eagerly and tells him not to worry, that he can take care of himself. “Most likely”, he says, with a little laugh, “I’ll just sleep until you get back.”

But he doesn’t.

When Ray get back home, he lingers in the doorway for a moment. He’s not used to finding the lights on, or the radio playing. He stands there and takes it in, enjoying the feeling of warmth blooming inside his chest, then drops his coat on the chair near the door and walks to the kitchen.

There’s two plastic bags on the table, and little piles of plates and glasses and bowls and cups. All the cupboards are open, and Miguel is neatly stacking everything inside, humming along to the radio. He smiles at Ray when he notices him, but doesn’t stop working. “It was a bit messy”, he says, apologetically. He says he’s washed the dishes, but the cupboards were ‘kinda confusing’, so he’s taken everything out and put it back inside again. He’s done the laundry, too, it’s all stacked on the windowseat in Ray’s bedroom, he wasn’t sure how Ray’s stuff is organized, so he thought he’d wait for him to deal with it.

“You didn’t have to…”, murmurs Ray, but Miguel just shrugs. He’s gone back to his usual way of dressing, but Ray’s little apartment is too cold for short sleeves, so he’s wearing a battered hoodie instead.  
“I got some food”, he says, pointing at the paper bags, “It’s probably cold now, though”, he adds, sounding like he’s expecting to be scolded, and lighting up when Ray says it’s ok, they’ll microwave it.

They eat in silence, the radio still buzzing in the background. Miguel is sitting with his back to the window, and the blue lights are starting to pop up inside the windows in the building next to this; they shine behind him, flickering like candles, the glare of some of them like a halo around Miguel’s head. They don’t look quite so sad, tonight.

Ray wakes up once, during the night. He goes to get a glass of water in the kitchen, sits at the table, on the chair Miguel has been sitting on during dinner, and looks at Miguel as he sleeps on the couch in the next room, lips pressed in a tight line, fingers clutching at his pillow.

It’s weird how quickly they fall into a routine. Ray wakes up first, makes coffee and some breakfast, he wakes up Miguel, they eat together. They leave the house together, too. Ray off to the orphanage, Miguel looking for a job. Ray is surprised at how determined Miguel is, how seriously he’s taking the promise he’s made him. Miguel usually gets home first, though Ray isn’t exactly sure when. They have dinner together, sometimes Ray cooks, badly, mostly they order takeout.

The third day Miguel’s there, he scolds Ray for eating dinner in front of the tv. “Meals are an important thing, man”, he says, “You’re supposed to sit at the table and stuff…”, so Ray does. He asks Miguel if he wants to say grace, but Miguel shakes his head and lets him do it, murmuring and unconvinced ‘amen’ at the end. Afterwards, Miguel insists on washing the dishes, then he says he’s not tired, and does Ray want to watch some tv? He falls asleep on the couch, his head on Ray’s shoulder, his arms crossed. Ray lets him.

It takes Miguel almost two weeks, but he does find a job; he’ll work as a mechanic somewhere close by, says he’d rather work on the engine and stuff, but he’ll do bodywork now, and he sure as hell won’t complain about it. He hugs Ray very tightly when he tells him, and Ray feels suddenly so incredibly tiny and vulnerable, and, at the same time, he doesn’t  really want him to let go.

The routine changes a little. Two days a week, Miguel works in the afternoon, so he asks Ray if he wants to meet and have lunch. It strikes Ray as odd, since they already see plenty of each other anyway, but he agrees all the same. Being together out of the house is nice. It gives things depth. Make Miguel look somehow more real than he usually does.

Still, Miguel doesn’t spend as much of his day out as Ray does. And Ray suspects he feels guilty for still being there after almost a month, so he keeps cleaning things up. He empties the fridge of anything bad, buys the groceries; he hangs a little blackboard on the wall so they can write what they’ve run out of on it; he dusts Ray’s bookshelves, cleans the windows, throws out the old towels and buys new ones.

He can’t stay put either, guesses Ray. Where Ray’s trying to help out others, volunteering here and there, Miguel is trying to help out _Ray_. And he’s succeeding. The apartment that Ray dreaded so much is turning into something warmer, something like a shelter. He comes home one day and Miguel is standing in the middle of the living-room, hands on his hips, considering the way he’s moved the furniture around. “The room looks bigger like this”, he says, softly, blushing a little.

The last remnants of winter fade just like Ray’s loneliness. One day, while he’s sitting on the window-seat in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette as he waits for the coffee to come out, he notices the first shy flowers blooming on the trees in the street, and at the same time he realize something has changed. He doesn’t feel as heavy as he used to. Doesn’t feel as tired. Miguel walks in the kitchen yawning and stretching, his shirt crumpling up and showing a generous stripe of his belly as he does. He steals Ray’s cigarette, takes a drag and gives it back. And it feels so familiar, Ray realizes, watching Miguel sit down and blow out the smoke with his eyes closed, it’s so _normal_.

Some nights are still bad, though. Some nights Ray wakes up to Miguel’s pacing, some nights Miguel whimpers and pleads in his sleep. Some nights they find themselves sitting at the kitchen table in the semi-darkness, smoking in silence, as the sirens ring down in the streets, as dogs call out to each other, and people in the apartment downstairs listen to ancient rock music with their windows open.

It’s during one of these nights that Miguel kisses him. He drags his chair next to Ray to share a cigarette and a beer, sits backwards on it. He reaches out and holds Ray’s chin between his fingers, tilts his head, and presses his mouth to Ray’s. It’s a tentative, innocent kiss, and still, Ray doesn’t know what to do, so he doesn’t do a thing. Miguel’s lips are soft against his, the vague traces of a stubble scratch at Ray’s face. Ray feels like closing his eyes, but he doesn’t. “I can’t”, he says instead, his voice a bit shaken, once Miguel moves away to study him, “I can’t do this, I took a vow… Just because the Church thinks otherwise, it doesn’t mean I’m not a priest”, there’s a knot in his throat as he speaks. And he believes what he’s saying, too. His vow was to God, not to the Church. He gave Him his word. But he’s not a priest after all, is he? He can’t do anything a priest can do. So what is he?

“I’m sorry”, murmurs Miguel, alarmed, when Ray’s voice dies down, and a sob escapes his lips instead of a word, “I’m sorry, please, don’t cry. I won’t do it again, I…”, he immediately goes quiet when Ray shakes his head and wraps his arms around his neck, pressing his face against Miguel’s shoulder. It’s an awkward position, and he’s not sure what’s going on, he’s not sure what he wants, he’s not sure what’s right and what’s wrong, he just knows he _needs_  someone to touch him, he needs someone to hold him tight, even if just for a moment. And Miguel does hold him. He rests his head against Ray’s, a hand spread open against his back, another to the back of Ray’s head, fingers slowly running against the short hair on the nape of Ray’s neck.

When Ray wakes up, he’s on the couch, curled up underneath a blanket, using Miguel as a pillow. They’re sitting up, Miguel’s arm wrapped protectively around Ray’s shoulders. The light in the kitchen is still on, and the sun is coming up. He’s fully awake, Ray. And still, he rests his head on Miguel’s chest and closes his eyes, willing morning to wait a few moments before it comes knocking at his door.

Miguel’s summer project, it turns out, is repainting the apartment. “You can’t even tell what color the walls are”, he shrugs, “And, you know. The thing happened”, he adds, in a mumble. The ‘thing’ being that time he tried cooking dinner himself, and the kitchen almost caught on fire. He managed to keep the situation under control, but left a big black mark on the wall.

So the painting starts; the kitchen first, of a nice color that will make it look full of light. Ray comes home for lunch on his free day, and finds Miguel with his tongue between his teeth, carefully laying a coat of paint above the window, wearing a hat made out of a towel with a knot on each corner, and old shapeless clothes, splotches of paint on his face, and finds himself grinning like an idiot. Miguel catches him, and he looks surprised, but just for a moment. He doesn’t comment, he just start grinning himself.

“I will have to sleep in your room”, ponders Miguel, once he starts painting the living-room, “For a day, maybe two”, he says. Ray shrugs, says it’s all right. Though the couch in there is way too small. Is even too small for _Ray_  to sleep on it comfortably, and he’s a tiny guy. Miguel looks a bit alarmed at that, he moves his weight from one foot to the other, “It’s ok, I can sleep here, it’s no big deal…”  
“It’s a big bed”, shrugs Ray, trying not to sound as nervous as he feels.

The first night, it takes Ray forever to fall asleep, but he does it all the same. He falls asleep facing the room, wakes up facing Miguel. He looks so peaceful, so calm. His lips are parted a little, his face relaxed. Ray feels like reaching out and touching him, following the scar on his face with his fingertips. He catches himself thinking that he could get used to this. He catches himself thinking that he would _love_  to get used to this.

The second night is easier. They’re both incredibly tired, and they fall asleep straight away. When he wakes up, Ray’s spooning Miguel, or almost. The balls of Ray’s feet are pressed against Miguel’s tendons, he’s got an arm wrapped around him, his forehead pressed against his back. He makes to move away, but Miguel’s hand grabs his and squeezes, and Ray goes still. He’s asleep, he thinks, he’s not doing it on purpose. Still, Ray intertwines their fingers together and breathes out deeply, closing his eyes again.

“The paint doesn’t look dry yet”, murmurs Ray during breakfast.  
“Nope”, agrees Miguel, “Maybe one more day.”

Except that day becomes two more, and on the third and fourth, after Miguel’s done painting the bedroom, they both sleep on the couch, squeezed even closer to each other. When the bedroom walls are dry, Ray grabs the covers folded on the couch and stuffs them in the closet, he carries both his pillows and Miguel’s in the bedroom, and makes the bed for two.

Maybe ten days after they’ve started sharing the bed, while Ray reads and Miguel sleeps, it suddenly dawns on Ray that he hasn’t noticed Miguel getting out of bed in the middle of the night, lately, he hasn’t been kept awake by his pacing, and he definitely hasn’t heard him cry out in his sleep.  
He gives Miguel a look; closes his book, puts it on the bedside table, turns off the light, and lies down, still looking at Miguel’s sleeping silhouette.

The parole officer’s first random visit happens on a scalding hot summer day. The air conditioning died two days earlier, and Ray and Miguel have decided they’ll put up a fan, but haven’t gotten around doing it yet, so all the windows are open wide to let in the feeble warm breeze coming from outside, the curtains swaying softly. “Miguel is at work”, says Ray, gesturing to the officer, whose name he just learned to be Vincent Calimera, to come on in, “Would you like something to drink?”, he asks. “I don’t know how you live up here”, says the man, “That elevator hasn’t worked _once_  since I started coming to check on mister Alvarez.”  
So Ray makes the officer sit, he offers him some ice tea, asks him if anything’s wrong.  
“Why would you ask that?”, says the man, suspiciously. “I’ve worked in a prison for years”, shrugs Ray, “I know how this works, random visits aren’t usually random at all”; but the officer shoos away his words with a hand and just tells him he was in the area anyway and thought he’d check on Miguel in case he was up to something, “I thought I’d find him at home, skipping work, to be honest”, he confesses, and Ray smirks proudly at him: “He hasn’t missed a day since he started”, he says, like it’s his victory, too.

When Miguel showed up at his door, Ray was expecting to have to keep him in line during his stay. Keep an eye on him, make sure he didn’t get in trouble. But Miguel has been behaving flawlessly. There have even been a couple of occasions in which people have tried to _start_  troubles, and he’s just kept on walking. So when they’re in line at the store and someone cuts the line in front of them, and Ray gently tries telling the man they were there first, and the man snaps back something offensive, the last thing Ray is expecting is for Miguel to start shouting at the man. He’s paralyzed for a moment, surprised, afraid he won’t be able to stop Miguel as he demands the man’s apologies, but it only takes Ray firmly calling his name for Miguel to stop. He makes a little jump, like a scolded puppy, then walks back beside Ray, arms crossed, glaring at the man, who hurries paying for his groceries and leaving.

“I didn’t like him talking to you like that, that piece of shit”, murmurs Miguel, sounding a bit ashamed, “And you defended me plenty of times, too. You got between me and Glynn when he wanted to hurt me, and I didn’t deserve that, I didn’t deserve it, after all the shit I’ve done to you, after I let people beat you and I’ve hurt you and… I didn’t deserve anything of what you’ve done for me, and I don’t deserve it now. He shouldn’t have talked to you like that…”; he can’t stop talking, Miguel, he keeps rambling and torturing his hands, even as they walk back home, his eyes shiny like he wants to cry.

And Ray doesn’t know why, he doesn’t even know he’s thinking about it until he does it; and maybe it’s because he doesn’t know what to say, maybe because he’s tried talking _so many times_ , and it’s never worked; but when they stop at the traffic light, Ray grabs Miguel’s collar and pulls him down, and kisses him on the lips. They’re standing there, in the middle of the sidewalk, grocery bags in hand, while Ray’s fingers cling to Miguel’s collar and he brushes his lips to Miguel’s, and then while they look at each other without a word, Miguel’s eyes wide. Ray’s hand trails against Miguel’s chest for a moment as the light turns green and they start walking again.

“You’ve never done it, have you?”, asks Miguel, after Ray’s done praying and he’s finally flopped on the bed, “Kissed somebody, I mean.”  
“Well”, murmurs Ray, feeling a bit uncomfortable, “I kissed you…”  
Miguel laughs, hops on his side, facing Ray, “No, I mean an actual kiss”, he says, “With tongue and all.”  
“Oh”, whispers Ray.

Truth is, he decided to become a priest when he was _so young_. In his heart, he’d always been one, even before actually _becoming_  one. In his heart, he’d already given God his word when he was a kid, and all his friends were exchanging kisses and awkward touches. He’s never been like Peter Marie, he’s never had a life _before_  becoming a man of God.

“If you want”, says Miguel, slowly, “I can show you.”  
He doesn’t mean _now_ , he says, and Ray doesn’t need to say yes. He’s just asking him in case he wants to, he’s not demanding, and if Ray doesn’t want to, then it’s fine.  
In the end, Miguel falls asleep, and Ray stares at the spotless ceiling, his thoughts raging. Does it make any sense, this whole thing? He’s not a priest. He can’t be a priest, will never be able to go back to his life. He can pray as much as he likes, things won’t change. And if things are the way they are, then who is he to question God’s will? Maybe he’s just where he needs to be. And even if he’s not, what good will it do to him, trying to live a life he can’t live, and therefore making sure he can’t live any other possible life?

“Miguel”, says Ray, suddenly, shaking Miguel a little, “Miguel, wake up”; and Miguel does, confused and a bit worried, squinting at the alarm clock to see what time it is.  
“What?”, he mumbles, “What is it?”  
“Kiss me”, Ray demands.  
Miguel looks suddenly awake. He stares at him, the light from outside the window raining on him. “What?”, he says again, in a whisper.  
“Please”, murmurs Ray, and Miguel nods, then nods again, then brings a hand to the back of Ray’s neck and leans in.

Ray doesn’t do anything for a moment, he just parts his lips and lets Miguel lick at the roof of his mouth, humming as he traces the shape of Ray’s teeth with his tongue, then, hesitantly, he kisses him back, fingers clutching at the old shirt Miguel sleeps in. And there’s shivers running down his spine, a pleasant little tug in his guts. Miguel caresses Ray’s hair, he catches Ray’s lower lip between his teeth for a moment before kissing him again. Then Miguel shifts a little, and his thigh rubs against Ray’s crotch, and Ray jumps back.

“Hey, it’s ok”, murmurs Miguel, soothingly, still caressing his hair.  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t… I’m sorry”, stutters Ray, “Sorry”, he repeats, once he figures out the words aren’t going to come any time soon, sounding a bit defeated.  
“It’s ok”, says Miguel, again, pressing his forehead to Ray’s. He kisses him again, this time innocently, presses his lips to the corner of Ray’s mouth, then to his cheek, “You don’t have to feel ashamed with me.”  
“I know”, sighs Ray, “I’m sorry.”  
“And stop apologizing”, adds Miguel.  
“Sorry”, mutters Ray, “I mean…”  
Miguel chuckles and snuggles closer, resting his head on Ray’s chest. And for some reason, even though they’ve been only just recently started to be more comfortable around each other, Ray’s not used to it, he’s used to be the one curling up against Miguel, and the fact he’s the one doing it now, sighing happily as he listens to Ray’s heartbeat, makes the worry disappear from his head immediately.

One day Ray’s brushing his teeth when he realizes just how different his entire house is, now. And it’s not just the obvious things, the furniture being moved around and the walls being painted; it’s Miguel’s toothbrush in the glass on the sink, it’s his razor next to Ray’s on the shelf; it’s the fact that the green bowl has now become ‘Miguel’s bowl’, that he’s got a favorite blanket, that he’s stolen one of Ray’s hoodies and it’s now in Miguel’s side of the closet. It’s Miguel’s CDs piled neatly next to the stereo, the fact he’s bought a DVD player and he’s now gathering movies to watch after dinner, the fact his leather jacket is hanging next to Ray’s in the corridor, and he’s got his own keys to the apartment.

It’s not Ray’s house anymore, it’s _their_  house. They’re so perfectly intertwined sometimes he’s not sure what’s his and what’s not, and it doesn’t even matter.

“Ok, hear me out”, says Miguel one day, drying the dishes Ray hands him, in the soup kitchen where Ray volunteers, “You know dogs are, like, hm… therapeutic, yeah? Like, you’re happy if you have a dog around, d’you know what I’m saying?”  
“Sure”, says Ray.  
“Ok, so, I was thinking, maybe you and I, we can get a dog, right? No, hear me out, I thought about it! You can bring the dog to the orphanage when you’re working there, right? So the kids can play with it and stuff, because it’s good for them. And then it’ll sleep at home, and we’ll hang out with it when we’re not at work”, he says, cheerfully, “We can go pick one at the kennel, so they don’t kill it, you know.”  
Ray nods thoughtfully, drying his hands on his apron. “I’ll ask at the orphanage”, he says.  
“Cool”, grins Miguel.

The furniture gets moved around again, so Miguel can make a little corner for the dog. A colorful dog bed appears, along with a blue leash, and some bowls exclusively for the dog. The director of the orphanage sounded pretty excited about Miguel’s suggestion, and even said she herself had thought of getting some dogs to keep at the orphanage, so there’s even the chance their future dog will have friends.

On Ray’s day off, Miguel asks his boss to lend him a car, and they both drive to the kennel. Miguel falls in love immediately, with a bulky, one year old gray pitbull who always looks like she’s smiling, and keeps pressing her head against Miguel’s hand for cuddles. Her previous owner used to make her fight with other dogs, the lady working there says, even boars, sometimes. That’s why she’s full of scars.  
“So am I”, whispers Miguel, scratching the dog behind her ears, “Does she have a name?”, he asks, and the lady says no, her owner hadn’t bothered thinking of one. “Let’s call her Reina”, says Miguel, smiling at Ray, “Because she’s too much of a badass to be a _princesa_.”  
There’s a bit of confusion when the lady asks for Reina’s last name to put on the paperwork; in the end Miguel grabs the papers and scribbles: ‘Mukada-Alvarez’ on the paper, “That’s the proper way to do it”, he mutters, with a little shrug, leaving Ray to finish the paperwork as he crouches down and cuddles a delighted Reina.

So, Ray thinks, as they sit on the couch watching tv, with Reina napping in her bed, now there’s no doubt they’ve stopped being two single entities wandering around aimlessly. There’s no doubt that, somewhere along the way, during these past five months, they’ve become something else, something more.

And the routine changes some more.

Now, before falling asleep, they snuggle closer together and cuddle, they kiss lazily, and Ray’s getting the hang of it. He likes biting Miguel’s lips, tugging a little at his hair to get him where he wants him; and both things make Miguel laugh and kiss him harder. Miguel, on his part, seems to like the way Ray’s hips feel underneath his hands, because he keeps running his hands against them, then up to his waist, then back down again.

Ray takes care of Reina during the day; Miguel walks her before dinner. Miguel asks his boss to move his day off so that it’s the same as Ray, and they can walk to the park and play with Reina, and have lunch at the nice diner close by, and Miguel can not-so-secretly let her eat some of his food under the table.

The nights are hot and fragrant; after dinner Ray and Miguel sit out on the balcony, Miguel leaning back against the backrest of his plastic chair, feet up on the parapet, a lit cigarette hanging from his lips, a hand distractedly caressing Reina’s head. There’s a solitary cricket in the trees down in the little garden, it sings and sings. Ray watches as the tip of Miguel’s cigarette burns brighter with every drag he takes, he looks at his face, only half of it lit up by the light coming from inside the apartment.

On Sunday mornings, Ray lets Miguel sleep in, opens the door to the bedroom so Reina can curl up on the bed with him, and goes to the morning Mass. On one of the first autumn days, he searches his heart for any trace of guilt, as he looks up at the altar, mechanically reciting prayer after prayer, and for the first time in years finds absolutely none.

“Sister Peter Marie used to say communication is the most important thing in any kind of relationship”, says Miguel one evening, taking a little break from the kissing, speaking as if he’s repeating something he’s heard word for word. Cars are roaring in the tv, NASCAR, maybe, maybe something else. Ray hums as he licks his lips, eyes following the movements of Miguel’s mouth as he speaks. Reina is rolling on the carpet, chewing on a toy and waggling he tail. “So I’m just gonna say it, ok?, throw it out there, that if you ever, hm, feel like maybe getting your dick sucked, then I’m down with that.”

Ray stares at him, taken aback, and Miguel blushes. “I’m just saying”, he mutters, eyes back on the tv, then hesitantly spying on Ray again.  
“Ok”, says Ray, “I mean, ok, noted, not: ‘ok, suck my dick’”, he adds, quickly. Miguel makes a sound between a laugh and a snort, squeezing Ray a little.  
“This is new to me too”, he murmurs, “I’m probably very bad at sucking dick anyway.”  
“I’m sure you’re extremely talented at sucking dick”, says Ray, with a little smirk, and Miguel bursts into laughter.  
“Thanks, I guess”, he says. Reina gives them both a look, maybe wondering if the fact they’re not kissing anymore means they want to play with her a little.

Officer Calimera shows up again at the beginning of September, finds Ray and Miguel trying to finally put up the fan so they don’t have to do it next year, and spends his entire visit cuddling Reina and giving them instructions that end up not really helping much.

It’s raining hard, on Ray’s birthday. He comes back home soaked to the bone, his scarf dripping wet, and he’s welcomed by a very excited Reina, and a nice smell of food. Miguel takes a peep at him from the living-room, then walks up to him and presses a kiss to his lips. “Go get into some dry clothes”, he grins, “Dinner’s ready.”  
“It smells good”, says Ray, hanging his dripping coat. Miguel looks particularly happy he’s said that.  
Ray hurries out of his wet clothes and into some dry ones, then walks to the kitchen, where Miguel is pacing nervously around. He stops when Ray walks in. He’s put a nice tablecloth on the table, put candles on it, too. Ray gives him a look. “I made chicken parmigiana”, he says, “I mean, it’s not some sophisticated  shit, yeah, but I didn’t set the kitchen on fire”, he offers, hopefully.

He must see something particular in the way Ray smiles at him, Miguel, because he blushes _hard_  and starts giggling, looking at his feet. So Ray walks closer, wraps his arms around Miguel’s waist, and tilts his head, getting up on the tip of his toes and kissing him.  
“I love you”, he says, and he means it. It’s surprising, to him, how it escaped his lips now, in the most normal of situations. He’s always thought declarations of love were meant to be something majestic, something dramatic. And yet, every time he’s felt like saying it, so far, has been during completely innocent moments. When Miguel said he likes Ray’s hair like it is now, a bit longer than usual, more even; when he told him he hates peach tea, but buys it anyway every time he goes shopping, because Ray likes it; when Ray dozed off on the couch and woke up with a blanket on…  
“Man”, murmurs Miguel, a bit dazed, “I should cook more often.”

They go to bed early, that night, or move to the bedroom anyway. Ray takes a shower, wraps himself in his bathrobe, and sits on the bed to read while his pajamas get toasty on the radiator and Miguel takes a shower himself. When Miguel comes out of the bathroom he’s only wearing a towel wrapped around his waist; he walks in the bedroom and picks up the clothes he’s left on the little couch, then turns around to go back to the bathroom, and catches Ray looking at him.

He hadn’t really meant to, Ray, and he immediately turns away. But Miguel _is_  very attractive, and, well, Ray is also a bit curious. It’s not like he’s never seen Miguel naked before, but he’s never actually _looked_ …  
“You can look”, says Miguel, dropping the clothes back and kneeling on the bed, crawling closer to Ray and lying down next to him, a hand lazily resting on his stomach, “It’s all yours anyway”, Miguel grins, making a broad gesture towards his own body. Ray chuckles, shaking his head. “I’m serious”, insists Miguel, looking up at him.  
“I don’t know how fair it is”, murmurs Ray, “That I get to see you and…”  
“Any time you want”, shrugs Miguel, “There’s no rush.”

Ray bites his lips. He clutches at the hem of his bathrobe for a moment, then tugs it open and lets it slide down his shoulders. Miguel sits up, studies him carefully. He leans in and presses a kiss against Ray’s shoulder, his hand raising up to mold to the side of Ray’s neck. Ray hums as he leans into Miguel’s touch, he presses his hands against Miguel’s chest.  
“Can I?”, asks Miguel, fingers hooked under the hem of Ray’s bathrobe, dark eyes big and hopeful.  
“Yes”, says Ray.

Once Ray’s bathrobe gets pushed off the bed, and Miguel wiggles out of his towel, there’s a brief moment during which Ray feels _terrible_  about this whole thing: He’s been taught for his whole life that nakedness is something people should be ashamed of, that there’s something ugly about it; but then Miguel gives him a look and just plops against his pillow and he stays there, completely still, lying right next to him, and Ray’s shame turns into something more like curiosity.  
He reaches out, Miguel, rests his hand against Ray’s side, brushes his thumb against his hipbone. “Man, I knew you would be gorgeous”, he says, sounding breathless, and slowly crawls closer to steal a kiss.

He presses Ray against himself, Miguel, softly, he keeps kissing him lazily. And his hands wander to places Ray wouldn’t have guessed; he gently pinches his sides, pokes at his belly and giggles, and Ray has to push him off a little just to frown at him and ask: what, what’s he doing?  
“You’ve got love handles”, grins Miguel, and he sounds _so delighted_.  
“I don’t have love handles”, mumbles Ray, blushing, “I run. Sometimes…”  
“It’s not _bad_ ”, says Miguel, and: “Look”; he grabs Ray’s hand and guides it on Ray’s stomach, makes it wander around it for a moment, then guides it to his own stomach, and yeah, Ray can see what he means: the muscles of Miguel’s stomach are all tense and hard, and Ray’s just aren’t. And he’s sort of envious for a moment, wonders if he should maybe start working out too, if he should start paying more attention to what he eats; but Miguel is squirming up and pinning him down, and pressing loud smacking kisses against his stomach, and Ray stops worrying and starts laughing, trying to push him away.

And Miguel does stop, and when he does that he’s somehow ended up between Ray’s legs, a hand holding up Ray’s thigh from when he tried to escape and almost accidentally kicked him. He’s not doing anything weird, anything _dirty_ , he’s just looking at Ray and grinning, and Ray thinks that yes, he likes this, he likes him there. Then Miguel presses one last kiss right above Ray’s bellybutton, and snuggles against him, using his stomach as a pillow. “I like you”, he says, in a little happy sigh. “Even though I have love handles?”, asks Ray, and Miguel chuckles and says: “What do you mean ‘even though’?”, and pinches Ray’s side again, “I’d eat you up.”

They have a mild October this year, the weather gets chilly, but the days are nice, and there’s almost no rain at all. The days are shorter and the nights long, and the trees, from the windowseat in the kitchen, are of such fierce shades of red they almost look on fire.  
On their day off and on Sunday mornings they bring Reina to the park, where she runs around following squirrels, or trying to catch the falling leaves.  
The kids at the orphanage are starting to get excited about Halloween; they’ve decorated the corridors of the building with cutouts of bright orange pumpkins and brown bats and confused-looking skulls; they make Ray promise he’ll bring them candies.  
One of Miguel’s coworkers gets sick, so for a week Miguel has to work late. Every day, during that week, Ray and Reina walk up to the workshop so that Miguel won’t have to walk home alone. It’s a comforting sight, the illuminated garage in the middle of the already sleepy street. Miguel holds Reina’s leash on the walk back; they stop to buy roasted chestnuts that warm up Ray’s hands through his gloves, and Miguel casually wraps an arm around Ray’s shoulders to keep him close as they walk.

Winter is on them, or just about. Miguel sits on a chair underneath the window, Reina in front of him, her big head on Miguel’s lap, eyes closed and tongue lolling as Miguel pets her. “Keep your head up”, says Ray, reaching around to put a hand underneath Miguel’s chin and make him look up.  
The light coming through the window is of a frail sort, cold as ice, but it makes the little bundle of empty mason jars on top of the kitchen cabinet explode in a myriad of colors that rain everywhere, some even reaching the living-room. Miguel hums a tune as Ray cuts his hair, hum that turns into something more like an happy little sigh every time Ray runs a hand through his hair to fix it better. Half-way through the haircut, Miguel tilts his head back and looks up at Ray. He just looks at him, grinning a little as Ray brushes his thumb against the scar on Miguel’s cheek. “Can I get a kiss?”, he asks, in the end, in a soft, mellow, warm tone. He bites his lips as he waits, bats his eyelashes, and Ray chuckles. “Fine”, murmurs Ray, and he leans in towards him, pressing his mouth to Miguel’s.

It makes his stomach twist happily, how quickly they fall into place now, how they’ve learned to read each other well enough that they know what the other is going to do before he does it. This kiss is nothing like the first ones, there’s no clashing of teeth, no awkward moving of hands around to figure out what to do with them. Miguel reaches back and rests a hand to the back of Ray’s head, he sucks on Ray’s lower lip for a moment before he lets him move away. “Thank you”, he grins, sitting up and making a show of putting his head up for him. Reina yawns and presses her pink nose against Miguel’s hand, trying to get him to cuddle her again.

Ray wakes up early on Miguel’s birthday. He says his prayers and gets dressed, and he’s walking to the kitchen when he notices Reina sitting on the windowseat looking outside, dumbstruck. She looks at him, then outside again, and Ray walks closer to the window and looks down at the neighborhood blanketed in snow. He wonders if Reina has ever had the chance to play in the snow, wonders if she needs to wear something to keep warm. She keeps following him around, perplexed, as Ray starts making pancakes. “We’ll go out soon, I promise”, says Ray. Reina waggles her tail.  
When breakfast is ready, Ray walks to the bedroom and sneaks underneath the covers, straddling Miguel and shaking him a little. “Wake up”, he says, pressing a kiss to his jaw, then to his cheek, then, when Miguel does open his eyes and looks at him, on the tip of his nose, making him giggle sleepily. “I made pancakes”, Ray murmurs, as Miguel molds both hands to his hips, then slides them down to cup his butt. “Let’s cuddle”, whispers Miguel, dreamily. Ray shakes his head and bends down to steal a kiss. “Later”, he says, “The pancakes are going to get cold. It’s snowing, too…”, he adds. Miguel gives him a weirdly surprised look and sits up, trying to look outside the bedroom window, hugging Ray in the process.

“I missed the snow last year”, he says later on, eating his breakfast, “I kept hoping they’d release me in time for the holidays, those assholes…”; he doesn’t even sound bitter as he says it, he’s so in awe.  
Reina is still sitting on the windowseat, this time around cheerfully eating pancakes.  
Miguel looks like a little kid as they walk down the stairs, excited at least as much as Reina. For a moment, after they’ve managed to push the door open, they just stand there, Reina hesitantly flailing a paw around, unsure whether to touch the fluffy white snow or not. In the end, she takes a big leap and almost disappears in the snow, then reemerges with a hop, and sinks down again. She keeps doing that, hopping like a big rabbit, tongue lolling, looking like she’s smiling brightly as she plays. Miguel carefully picks up a handful of snow and starts pressing it into a ball, he does it gingerly, as if he’s forgotten how, or maybe he wants to impress every single bit of it in his mind. Ray is calling out to Reina when the snowball hits the back of his head, and Miguel bursts into laughter.

They’re all wet from the snowball fight that ensues when they get back upstairs. Reina is happily exhausted, and she goes straight to her corner to get warm in front of the radiator, then falls asleep. Miguel, instead, looks like he’s suddenly bursting with energy; he holds Ray by his waist and kisses him, making him back down towards the bedroom, slipping his clothes off on the way there. “Wait”, murmurs Ray, and Miguel immediately stops, “No, I mean… let’s take a hot shower, first, I’m freezing”, he smiles. Miguel nods eagerly and kisses him again.

Ray isn’t sure how he’d pictured this happening, but it definitely wasn’t like this. He’d figured sex would be a pretty straight forward thing, but Miguel is so careful, he keeps stopping, asking him if he’s all right, if it feels good; and when Ray says it hurts a little Miguel nods and announces they’re taking a break to smoke and cuddle. They spend the entire morning doing just that, exploring and trying and cuddling; they take a nap after lunch, and when they wake up Ray snuggles closer to Miguel and tugs and pulls him until he’s back on top of him, kissing him and rocking gently against him. “Do you want me to try again?”, asks Miguel, and Ray nods and spreads his legs for him, relaxing back against the bed. And this time around it’s easier; maybe because Ray knows what to expect, maybe because he’s still all hot and sleepy, but Ray’s body doesn’t put up as much resistance as before.  
It’s not rough, but it’s _intense_ , and soon enough Ray’s breathing heavily and swallowing down little moans, his face hidden against Miguel’s shoulder, fingernails digging into Miguel’s back. He keeps whispering encouragements in a mix of Spanish and English, Miguel, a hand to the back of Ray’s head to press him closer; he curses out loud when he comes first, hurries moving down between Ray’s legs and wrapping a hand around his cock before starting to suck on it, holds on tight to Ray’s hips as he arches up, fingers clutching at the blanket, head pressed back against the pillow.

“You bruise very easily”, comments a sleepy Miguel, the next morning, tugging the covers down along Ray’s body to examine the marks his fingers have left on Ray’s skin, a little arch of them on his hips. He looks pretty proud, touches them gently; “Do they hurt?”, he asks, and Ray shakes his head, then reconsiders and says: “I’m not sure, I’m just… kind of sore pretty much everywhere”, he chuckles. Miguel flops on his belly and points at his back, grinning at Ray: “You didn’t go easy on me either”, he says, and Ray sits up to take a look, eyes going wide as he notices all the scratches on Miguel’s back, hesitantly touching them. He’s even broken the skin, in some places. “I’m so sorry, Miguel”, he says, and: “ _Shit_.” Miguel just laughs and scrambles up, holding Ray’s jaw with a hand and kissing him. “Don’t be sorry”, he says, “You feisty little shit”, and he tries to kiss him again, but Ray’s laughing too hard and Miguel has to make do with a loud kiss against his cheek.

On a freezing Saturday night, Ray comes home to a pile of boxes and paper bags crowding the living-room. As soon as he takes Reina’s leash off, she bolts to take a look and sniff at them. He finds Miguel in the kitchen, sitting at the table, smoking a cigarette as he keeps an eye on the oven. “What’s with the boxes?”, asks Ray, stealing Miguel’s cigarette, pressing a little kiss to his lips, then taking a drag. “Decorations, man”, smiles Miguel, “How are we supposed to know Christmas is coming if it doesn’t look like it?”  
He goes on telling him how they almost never had decorations at home when he was little, most of the time just a naked, sad-looking plastic tree. He doesn’t care about the presents, he says, but he does want Christmas lights on the balcony, and a nice, fat Christmas tree next to the window in the living-room, so that people can look up and see its lights blink and shine from the street.  
“Also I made cookies”, he adds, pointing at the oven.

They go through the decorations Miguel bought as they wait for the cookies to be done. Among other things there’s a tiny little Christmas tree and an equally tiny nativity scene: “Those are for your desk at the orphanage”, says Miguel, happily, grabbing Reina as she tries to run away with a pinecone-shaped ornament. They both get distracted when the smell of the cookies starts filling the apartment, and walk back to the kitchen, where they proceed to not wait a moment after pulling the cookies out of the oven, and keep burning their fingertips as they break the cookies and eat little pieces of them, the bits of chocolate inside them still gooey.

Most of the decorating, they do together, but while Ray is away things keep appearing around the house; one of the mason jars is moved to the center of the kitchen table and filled with candy canes, a wreath shows up on the door, even a bunch of Christmas-themed magnets suddenly fill the fridge. “You really _are_  having fun”, comments Ray, when they turn on the Christmas tree for the first time. “I’m living the life”, announces Miguel, with a grin.

They both spend Christmas Eve volunteering at the soup kitchen; Miguel jokes with everybody as they get their dinner, and adds an extra cookie if the person holding the tray is a kid. They take their breaks separately, Ray first, then Miguel, walking out in the freezing cold of the back alley to smoke a quick cigarette and look at the snow as it falls twirling and glittering. As Miguel walks out for his break, Ray grabs his sleeve and presses a cold little kiss against his cheek.

They stay late to help clean up, and they’re chatting in the middle of the room, Miguel leaning on the broom he’s been sweeping with, when one of the other volunteers chuckles and informs them they’ve been standing underneath the mistletoe for five minutes already. “Can’t fuck with traditions, man, that stuff’s important”, says Miguel, in a weirdly serious tone, looking up at the mistletoe before grinning at Ray.

The snow has stopped falling when they start making their way home, their breath coming out in puffy white bursts of smoke. There’s a little group of people outside the neighborhood church, the sound of singing coming from inside. Ray doesn’t even fully realize he’s stopped walking. He feels an intense wave of nostalgia wash over him, he’s drawn to the lit up church and the delicate song that’s raising from it, but at the same time he feels peculiarly sad. “Do you want to go in?”, asks Miguel, and he holds his hand out to him, as if already knows the answer. They cross the street hand in hand, walk inside the church hand in hand, letting go just to make the sign of the cross, Ray mechanically, Miguel awkwardly. It’s almost as cold inside the church as it outside, and Ray and Miguel stand close to each other beside the pew closer to the entrance; they take off their hats, but keep the scarves.

When the singing stops, and the few people inside start getting ready for the midnight Mass, Miguel moves his weight from one foot to the other and says: “We can stay, if you want”, and: “But I don’t really remember the words…”  
“And here I was, thinking you were paying attention at Mass back in Oz”, teases him Ray, and Miguel blushes a little underneath his scarf: “Well, I _was_  paying attention”, he says, “Just not to the words.”

By the end of January, the snow has been substituted by an intense, freezing cold rain. Ray’s in the staff room in the orphanage, listening to one of the teachers talk about a book she’s reading, when everything suddenly start spinning. The next thing he knows is he’s sitting on the floor, blinking hard and trying to will the mist in front of his eyes to clear. A few moments of confusion follow, with two of the teachers helping him on the couch and getting him something to drink; then someone puts a hand on his forehead and declares he’s burning up, which Ray can’t swear to be true, since he’s just started shivering.

It takes Miguel maybe twenty minutes to show up at the orphanage, looking like he’s about to freak out. Ray is feeling pretty confused, by then, and doesn’t fully understand what’s going on apart from the fact Miguel is talking to the director of the orphanage and nodding. He must have dozed off, at that point, because Miguel has to shake him a little. He presses his lips to Ray’s forehead, curses between his teeth. “Come on”, he says, helping him up. They take the bus home, with Ray all curled up against Miguel, and his eyes burn, but he’s now started to shake hard. Miguel squirms around until he’s able to hug him, rubbing his hands against Ray’s back to warm him up, sending death stares to anybody who dares look at them a bit too long.

The first thing Miguel does when they get home is taking Ray’s temperature, sighing deeply, and starting to undress him. He’s too hot, he tells him, and Ray giggles. Miguel has to step into the shower himself when he guides Ray into it, because Ray’s legs feel shaky. He keeps apologizing for how cold the water is, and looks genuinely panicky, but the shower does help, and when Miguel takes Ray’s temperature again he sighs in relief. When he tucks Ray into the bed, Ray weakly grabs his sleeve and tugs at it, and Miguel sits on the edge of the bed and brushes Ray’s sweaty hair off his face. “Don’t go”, murmurs Ray, and Miguel shakes his head and lies down next to him, squeezing him in a hug.

When Ray wakes up, just for a moment, he hears Miguel speaking Spanish in the living-room; he wants to ask him to come back, but his throat is sore, and he dozes off again before he can give it a try anyway.

It’s Miguel that wakes him up next. He gathers pillows behind Ray’s back, sits on the bed again and makes sure he eats all the chicken soup he’s made, then drinks a big glass of orange juice. He snuggles next to Ray afterwards, and shivers bloom everywhere Miguel touches him, even with the most delicate of movements. He falls asleep again to Miguel murmuring something in Spanish to him.

He wakes up again feeling all sweaty and hot, but noticeably better. He calls out for Miguel, but there’s no answer, so he gets up, a bit unstable, and takes his clothes off. He takes a quick shower, wears clean clothes, and curls up on the couch. He would rather go back to the bed, but he’d have to change it first, and he still feels pretty weak. He curls up underneath a blanket, turns on the tv.  
It doesn’t take long for Miguel to come back home with Reina. “You’re up”, he says, with a smile, walking towards him and kneeling next to the couch without even taking his coat off, “I went to pick up Reina from the orphanage. How are you feeling?”  
He keeps caressing Ray’s hair, and his eyes look so very warm. Ray blinks at him, his heart suddenly speeding up. “You’re so nice to me”, he murmurs, “Why are you so nice to me?” Miguel tilts his head at that, a sweet little smile curving the corner of his mouth as he leans in and presses his forehead to Ray’s; “You saved my soul”, he says, simply, like Ray is supposed to know it already, and maybe he just forgot.

They spend the evening sitting on the couch, Ray using Miguel as a pillow, Reina curled up at their feet. It’s that time of the day, the moment when it’s too early to go to bed, but too late to do anything else. The light from the street filters through the kitchen window, casting long shadows, it mixes with the shifting light of the television. Something inside Ray’s head, perhaps the remnants of an old habit, tells him he should feel sad. But he really, _really_  doesn’t.

There’s a couple of birds chirping on the balcony when Ray starts making breakfast, a few weeks later. They’re hopping around, feasting on the breadcrumbs that ended up on the floor when Ray shook the tablecloth after dinner. Soon enough, Ray thinks, it will be spring again. In a couple of months, a year will have passed from the morning Miguel showed up at his door, looking thin and tired and lost, his face the mirror image of the feelings raging dully inside Ray’s chest.

A year. It feels like simultaneously too much and too little. He used to drag his feet around this house, Ray, to make sure he would spend most of his day away; and now it feels like an extension of himself. It feels like home. But maybe it’s not the house that’s changed, maybe it’s just Miguel’s presence that makes the difference.

To think he’d taken for granted he would never see him again, after leaving Oz. Of all things, in hindsight, that was what had hurt the most. Not the unfairness of it all, not the humiliation, not being robbed of the only life he’d ever known or wanted, not the terrible feeling of finality. The thought he would never see Miguel again. _That_  had hurt.

He’s lost in thought, waiting for the coffee to come out, when Miguel walks into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes, taking the long path to his chair just so he can kiss Ray good morning. He looks so cute like that, hair all ruffled, eyes still sleepy…

“You know”, Ray hears himself say, “I was talking with Beecher, once… I can’t even remember what we were talking about, but he asked me if I’d ever loved somebody too much. I couldn’t answer, at first, and I think he thought he’d asked me something inappropriate, but it wasn’t that. It was… I was surprised at my reaction to that question. All I could think of, as soon as he asked, was that urge I felt to throw myself between you and anybody trying to hurt you, even though I knew I would most likely get hurt myself in the process. I was sure that it would get me killed, sooner or later, that instinct I had, but I didn’t care about that at all. It was irrelevant, as long as you were safe. So I told him that yeah, I have loved somebody too much”, he looks at Miguel, who now seems to be completely awake, and he’s looking at him in silence, lips vaguely parted, “I still do”, Ray murmurs, softly.  
Miguel looks down and nods almost imperceptibly, probably to himself more than to Ray, then he looks up at Ray again, a serious expression painted on his face: “You and I”, he says, “We can be happy.”  
Ray smiles at him, tilting his head a little. “Yes”, he says.


End file.
